


Spectres of Loss

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [79]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Literal Sleeping Together, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Morning Cuddles, Other, Reader-Insert, Sharing a Bed, Spooning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24691450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Your brain gets a little bit carried away one morning, as you lie in bed holding Loki to your chest, and you lose yourself in thoughts of love.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [79]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 7
Kudos: 175





	Spectres of Loss

It wasn’t often that you got to spoon Loki, but damn if it wasn’t lovely. Normally he preferred to hold you. No matter how the two of you fell asleep, you nearly always woke up in his arms with his body curling perfectly around yours even in his sleep. You liked it. Of course you liked it. He felt like safety. When you told him that, he usually scoffed and made a joke about humans, or else just tried to change the subject, but it was true. You loved him, and you loved how he loved you, even when his conscious mind was shut off.

But this morning you woke up in the grey light of dawn and untangled yourself from his arms so you could run to the bathroom. When you were finished, it was still far too early to be awake, so you went back to bed without a second thought. He’d turned onto his other side. He curled around a pillow now. The man was so precious and so cuddly and no one else had any idea. It felt like a blessing to be able to see this side of him. You slid into the bed as quietly as you could. If you woke him even a little bit, you knew he’d take you back into his arms, but maybe, right now, you didn’t want that. Instead, you curled yourself along his body, fitting your knees into the bend in his own and wrapping your arm around his midsection.

He slept peacefully. That was yet another blessing. That he felt safe enough here, comfortable enough here to be able to turn off his mind and get the rest he so desperately needed, it was a good feeling. He had nightmares, of course. There were countless nights that he woke up in a cold sweat, that he pulled away from you so he could sit up on the edge of the bed and try to pull himself together. There were even some nights that he had to leave the room so he could sit on the sofa in the lamplight and stare blankly at the walls. You couldn’t blame him. He didn’t talk about them often, usually saying that he wanted to keep that part of his life away from this new part, but when he did it made you sick. If you could erase it all simply by taking him in your arms, you would. 

Sometimes, on the nights that he had to leave you, you laid awake and tried to decide how much you would sacrifice to help him heal. You’d give him up entirely, you thought. If the only way to make him forget what had happened in the past was to give up your future with him, you’d do it in a heartbeat. You never breathed a word of that to him. You knew that, if you did, he would be upset, maybe even angry, and tell you all sorts of things that would make your cheeks burn, but that didn’t change anything. If you had the choice between keeping him locked here with you—and his demons—or setting him free of the horrors of his past but no longer being able to hold him, the choice was easy. Maybe that was just because you knew it’d never come to that, though. There were no magical beings that could heal your beloved. No one could undo what had been done to him. So you kept his demons _and_ the love in his eyes.

He was breathing deeply. The sound of it made you happy. _He_ made you happy. You pressed your forehead against the back of his neck and breathed him in. He smelled like home. In the grand scheme of things, you hadn’t been together for very long, but you already found so much comfort and strength in him. Just his quiet presence in the same room was enough to calm the storms that often broke over you. His touch felt like peace, even when it sparked tiny fires beneath your skin. Breathing him in like this felt like prayer, like meditation, felt _good_ in a way that you would never be able to find the words to describe. And as clever and observant as he could be, you always got the sense that he had no idea. He’d spent so long being largely neglected or downright despised that it was not in his nature to believe the way you loved him. Early on, when you were first realizing how you felt about him, you’d tried to sit him down and tell him right to his face, but you’d only stumbled over the words until frustration filled your eyes with tears. Even then he’d only laughed quietly, tolerantly, and pulled you into his arms to comfort you. 

You ran your hand along his side. He was ticklish, so you made sure to weight your touch enough that you wouldn’t disturb him. His skin was soft, softer than you ever would have thought it could be. So much of him was soft. Make no mistakes: he had more defenses than anyone you had ever known. He had plates of armor on top of plates of armor, and then vicious protective spikes on top of that. He kept people at arm’s length with his temper and his sarcasm. He’d tried to keep you at arm’s length, but, as stubborn as you were, that only further endeared him to you. The first time he’d looked at you with anything other than cool disdain, you’d nearly missed it. But then he kept doing it. One day, you realized that the affection in his face had become the norm, not the exception. That day, you asked him to dinner.

And he’d said yes.

And now here you were.

You brushed your fingertips along his belly. He didn’t even twitch. You kept your hand there for a while, feeling the way his stomach rose and fell as he breathed, and willed all of your love and gratitude into him. He deserved so much more than he got. People looked at him like he was a monster. _He_ looked at himself like he was a monster. Sometimes you felt like you were the only one on Earth—possibly the only one in any of the realms he spoke of—who saw him for what he was. Brilliant. Beautiful. Strong. Loyal, even. He didn’t trust easily, not that you could blame him, but when he _did_ trust someone, that was it. Sometimes it worried you, the things that he would do for you. You had no doubt that he would move the stars for you if he had to, and he’d do it without a second thought about his own well-being. And people—Thor, the Avengers, SHIELD itself—discounted that like it was nothing. It made you so angry.

As they often did, your fingers sought out his scars. He had so many. Some of them were little more than pale discolorations of his skin, just ghostly traces of old injuries, but too many of them were raised. Without looking, you could tell how different they were from the rest of his skin. They felt tight, glossy. They traversed his abdomen, his chest, his back. Sometimes, when you let your imagination get the better of you, you tried to picture how the wounds must have looked, which always made you wonder how he’d gotten them. He had some scars that made you queasy even to think about. They were too long, wrapping around him like thick coils of ropes. They made you imagine that he’d been ripped apart, then hastily stitched back together, possibly with a dull and dirty needle. You tried not to look at them too hard when he was awake to see you. They often brought tears to your eyes. Each nasty scar covered a place where you could have lost him before he was even yours. You hid your face in his shoulder blade, now, and chanted desperate prayers of thanks to the universe in your head.

He was alive. He was safe. He was here in your arms, sleeping and breathing in perfect peace. Your eyes were burning with tears that you would not shed, but he was well. You kissed his skin over and over and over again, turning it into a kind of mantra, something to focus on to ground yourself in the here and now. He had survived his past. He’d made it here to you. For now, if that was all you could focus on, then so be it. 

You must have been holding him too tightly, because he stirred a bit in your arms. You felt him close his fingers around your wrist and tug on it, gentle as ever, and then he turned his head a bit to try to get a look at you over his shoulder. “What is it, love?” His words, and the sound of his voice, low and rough and sweet, forced a sob out of you and you ground your forehead a little harder against him. He gave you your moment of privacy, but then moved so he could turn to face you. 

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” you whispered, not sure that you could trust your voice to go any louder. He held your face in his hands and kissed your forehead. Desperately, you reached up to grab his face, and traced his cheekbones with your thumbs. “I’m _so glad_ you’re here.”

He gave you a strange look, then, and a faint smile graced his lips. “Did you have a nightmare?”

You could have lied. It would have been easy simply to nod at him and let him cradle you against his chest and push this all aside. But you shook your head and lowered your hand to trace one of his nastiest scars. “I’m glad you’re here.” It took a moment, but understanding slowly dawned on his face. 

When it did, he slid his arms around you and pulled you in still closer to him. You laid there like that for a long time, clinging to each other and trying to think about what was still to come instead of what could have been, until the sun rose high enough to bathe you both in golden light.


End file.
